


Going to See the Frogs

by littleblackneko



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Kidlock, why sherlock is the way he is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:20:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackneko/pseuds/littleblackneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes has the capacity to care, the capacity to love, and yet nobody sees it. This explains the how and why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going to See the Frogs

/"Sherly!" the voice of the little girl echoed across the yard, and she tumbled to the ground, her dress flying up as she somersaulted backwards. She landed with her back on the ground, the sun shining down on her delicate face, thin brown hair splayed out like a lion's mane around her. Her brother collapsed beside her, trying not to look winded, and wound their hands together.   
"Yes, Anitalia?" the boy allowed his wiry limbs to splay out. 'Tag' was ridiculous. It had no point. Yet she still insisted he play it with her, and he had complied. Their older brother looked on from the porch, shaking his head at the ridiculous twins, so full of youth and life. They had no concept of sadness or destruction; they simply lay on the ground, laughing.   
"The frogs are coming out today, right?" The little girl asked wistfully. She turned her head to meet her brother's eyes, which were miraculously an exact match to hers, despite the fact that they were fraternal. He gave a small nod.  
"Very good remembering, Ani. Are you doing what I taught you?"   
"You said they would be here in 48 days. I put it in my mind palace, just like you said, and it's been the right amount of time now. The tadpoles are done growing."  
"A mind /palace/? You're so dramatic, Ani," the young boy chuckled.  
"Don't be so serious, Sherlock. You're starting to sound like My."   
"Well, we can't have that, now can we? He's never going to get it, Ani. He's eleven now, thinks he's so old."  
"Plus they say twins have a special connection. Our minds have become one."  
"Though scientifically, that isn't possible, I will say you do understand me in a way others fail to grasp. It is possible that could be attributed to our sharing eight months in the womb. I think I'll have to do further research on this topic."  
"Can we go see the frogs now, Sherly? I want to know if the experiment worked and you really did change the color."   
"Of course it's worked. I'm never wrong, I'm sure I rewrote the genetic compound of their color correctly. Follow me, Ani." The children ran towards the location where the river passed through the property. It was shrouded by some trees, and Sherlock and Anitalia curled up together in some of the brush.  
The seizure would happen in four hours. The diagnosis would come in six. "You're the greatest, Sherlock," she leaned over and kissed his cheek, giggling, "Happy fourth birthday!"   
"Happy birthday to you as well, Anitalia."   
Very soon, fate would come crashing down on the Holmes. Everything would begin to tumble downhill on this day. But in this moment, there were purple frogs./

 

"You won't find him today, John. He hasn't celebrated his birthday since he turned seven. There isn't going to be any changing that, no matter how hard you try."   
It really shouldn't surprise him at this point that Mycroft Holmes can show up at any point and know exactly what he was thinking. "Well, your family never ceases to disturb me. I'm not that shocked you weren't birthday people.I do, however, intend to-"   
"It isn't from lack of trying, Doctor Watson. No matter what you attempt he will refuse. Sherlock simply does not celebrate his birthday, has an absolute abhorrence to it."   
"Knowing Sherlock, I'm going to guess that there isn't necessarily a reason..?"   
"So he hasn't told you about her then. Not very shocking, given that he hasn't told anyone before. Not exactly an easy subject."  
"Her?"  
"Anitalia Gwyneth Holmes, his twin sister. He always spends his birthday with her."   
"Twin...sister? No, he's never mentioned her. So there are three of you?"  
"There was." Something dark passes through the polished man's eyes that John was afraid to question, and chose to sit down in his chair and send an expression that he knew would read: Explain. Now.   
He had known Sherlock for years, and though the man tended to act mysterious, John thought he had figured most of it out by now.Why would Sherlock not tell him about another sibling? 

/Somehow, he had drifted off: a rare occurrence. Sherlock wasn't sure what had awoken him, maybe it's the combination of sun poking through the overlying brush and Ani shaking spastically in his arms. It wasn't hard to recognize the symptoms, as her eyes were zoned out and unseeing. Sherlock did something irrational then. He screamed. He screamed himself hoarse because he didn't know what else he could do besides keeping her from falling in the river. His brother came running, by some godsend, and sprinted when he saw his usually collected little brother in a state of panic and the purpose for it.   
"Sherlock, don't ask any questions, run into the house and call 999 now!" Mycroft was gasping for breathe, trying to bring order to the situation. Sherlock glared at him  
"I'm not leaving her!".   
"She'll be fine, little brother, if you go call for help. I'll keep her safe.   
The sirens wailed sporadically as the emergency vehicles pulled in and loaded the little girl onto the ambulance. Sherlock insisted on riding in the back with the EMTs. No one was brave enough to stop him. /

"His twin Anitalia was born with a genetic defect called Alexander Disease. Very rare. Uncurable. Fatal." The suited man explained "And as you know, it's near impossible to keep anything from Sherlock." 

/Her words garbled now and she could barely, simply a small and pale quivering shape in a far-too-big bed.   
"Happy birthday, Ani," Her twin whispered, and he knew he saw a smile on her face. "I'm still working on figuring out a cure, but since we only turn six once, I figured that was much more important. What would you like me to do?" She muttered, and Sherlock simply nodded, picking up his violin. "Of course I'll play you a song." He kissed her forehead softly before drawing his bow and playing a happy tune for his beloved sister. Mycroft would be in in a few minutes to admonish him for pretending to be their father and calling himself out of school. But for now they had this./

"No!" Sherlock shouted as the heart went frantic so many years ago.   
"No!" John Watson, in the much more recent past, shouted as he watched his best friend fall to his death. 

"That's why he was so cold," Mycroft had told him, "He was afraid to love again."

/"You don't understand! No one else understands like Anitalia! And you don't even care! You...ice man." He was still young, after all, and he was hysterical. Mycroft felt guilty he couldn't show how he felt about the loss of his little sister. He had to be the proper, informative, stable eldest. And besides, it would pale in comparison to how his little brother felt. It was one of the downfalls of being brilliant, he felt so much more powerfully than the rest of the world. "She'll always be here now, to remind me that I couldn't fix it. It's my fault!" After today, that part of Sherlock would never again be seen./

The grass was still lush and green under Sherlock's feet as he walked across the giant yard. Logically, he knew that it was all the rain, but a part of him liked to think it was Ani, keeping alive the grounds they had played on.

/ "Sherlock, people are starting to worry."   
"Let them worry, I don't care."  
"You need to go to school and talk to people. This isn't healthy."  
"I don't care. No one else is going to like me, anyway, why should I have to associate with them?" The rest was left unspoken./

The thing that had scared him most upon meeting John Watson was that there was someone in his life who appreciated his brilliance, who didn't question who he was. He never thought he'd have that again. He knelt down on the ground. 

/It was all a downward spiral with Sherlock. This was the third time Mycroft had to remove the needles from the bedroom./

"Happy birthday, Anitalia." The manor was silent. No one had lived here in years, yet she had never left this place, "I can't believe it's been two and a half decades since you were alive. I'm sorry I don't come out more often, but then more intuitive people would ask questions. My is the only one who knows I'm here. He's still in the government, still just as dull. I don't think he would be able to deal with coming back here.  
" You're one of the very few weaknesses I have, you know, Ani. We're connected, and I still feel you now, sometimes. I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Ani. I was still a kid, and while that isn't an excuse, I didn't have access to what I needed. I wasn't able to find the cure, and you suffered." He stared at the gravestone, the engraving already showing signs of wear. Anitalia Holmes only had eight years.   
"We're thirty-three today, Ani, but I never celebrate. I haven't since you...died. You were the only friend I had for a long while. I made one a few years ago…and somehow he's stuck around. I haven't told him about you yet, because I don't know where to start. How do you tell someone about losing a part of yourself?He wouldn't really understand it. He's a good man,though. Very kind. Knows how to deal with me, if you can believe that. He's a doctor. Now, I do know you never liked the doctors. You were in so much pain and they didn't understand, they still gave you those horrible marrow transplants even though they did nothing. You'd like him, you two would've gotten on brilliantly given the chance. I never thought I'd have a friend again since you left. People call me a sociopath now, yet somehow I've... I have a friend again. It's not the same as you of course, no one could ever replace my twin sister.  
I do care about him, very much, Ani, and I don't know how to deal with it. I'm scared. I haven't gotten scared in so long, not since the later stages of your condition, when I realized that I was going to lose you. I don't know what I'm asking for, your blessing perhaps, to pursue this where it will go. This is ridiculous, I know. I'm talking to stone and dirt, but you're down there. There's still the possibility that you're listening. It's so against what I would tell anyone but, heh, I feel that I can't let myself believe you're not listening. You're the only one I could show this side of myself to. If you were still around, we could go see the frogs. They're coming out today. Just the two of us, brother and sister, best friends. You've done so much for me, and you didn't live in vain, Anitalia."  
John didn't know what made Sherlock notice he was there, an off footstep, wind consistency, a louder-than-the-rest breath, but in that moment, he pivoted to face him.   
"Hello John," his voice was stiff and cold, trying to mask everything that had happened in the past few minutes that had revealed a lifetime. His eyes gave him away. Not that he hadn't masked every emotion that might have laid there previously. He couldn't hide the red that enshrouded them, "I'm assuming My told you I was here and why."   
He noted John's moment of shock at his brother's nickname. He felt he needed to guard the gravestone, as if protecting Ani from what could be a foreign danger. It was ridiculous, but he felt selfish of her. This was his twin sister, no one else's. Why should anyone one else get time with her?  
But this was John, he rationalized. John has also never seen me this vulnerable, another part of his mind argued. He tried to never show weakness, tried to hide any pain he felt because caring was a disadvantage. This was the one time of year where he openly showed he cared. Anitalia had never judged him before; she understood him on a level that no one else could. Now, however he had a witness.   
"I'm not here to pressure you, Sherlock, into saying anything. I'm not asking for you to explain why you never told me why you didn't celebrate your birthday. Hell, if you want, you can ask me to leave right now and I would go, no questions asked. I'm not going to say I completely understand what this is like for you, because I would be lying. What I will say, though, is that I have been to the grave of someone I care about, and I'm here if you need it."   
He took a step back, allowing Sherlock a moment to process. It started very subtly, in the taller man's fingertips, then spread. Shaking. He was launched into an uncontrollable shaking. Very slightly, a few drops trickled down, as if they were facing resistance. He gave a smile, a small, sad smile, a look that usually never had taken residence on his face, unless it was a fake for a case. It struck John, and it felt like he had just been shot again because Sherlock had never looked so broken before.  
He took grip of the hand Sherlock offered, very faintly hearing a deep voice ask, "Would you like to meet my sister, John?"  
John nodded, not knowing what to do in the face of such an unusual situation. But he would be there for his friend. A frog hopped across the grave site. For some reason, it was purple.


End file.
